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I shouldn’t have come, and that’s the truth of it It’s not even five o’clock in the afternoon, and I’ dra a nice collapse to the floor, with

It’s my niece’s annual post-Christ out froovers find themselves required by Wendy Spinnaker to don their red sweaters and pleated slacks oneroom so they can admire her expensive Christmas decorations and her refurbished h school student in a waitress uniform delivers on a tray

As near as I can tell, the purpose of this gathering is siinia, that she is a Very Important Person, and wealthy besides—a force to be reckoned with A giver to charity A chairwos I can’t keep track of it all, to tell you the truth

I’m tempted to stand up and ask for a show of hands How many of y’all have souls that have withered in just the last few hours? How ht out the front door? I know I’d have some takers My niece would also have me murdered in my bed

I live far away, and I’—h sense to avoid it—but Houndy said I had to He said I’d regret not seeing the fas like deathbed regrets I think he i novel: so that should be wrapped up with a nice bow, all the sins forgiven Like that would ever happen

“I’ll go,” I said to hi them I’m sick”

“They’ll knohen they look at you,” he said And then of course they didn’t

Worse, this year would be the tied, and so the party has stretched on into infinity because we’re all waiting for him and his fiancée to arrive froh society she isinto

“She’s just soured out how to snag him,” Wendy toldbrain cell in her head A nursery school aide, if you can stand it Family isn’t anybody to speak of—the father’s in insurance, and thefor anybody, as near as I can tell They’re from Flah-rida That’s how she says it Flah-rida”

I was still processing the word flibbertigibbet and wondering what that ht mean in Wendy’s universe No doubt I’d be described as so equally dismissive I’m still considered the family misfit, you see, the one who has to be carefully watched Blix the Outrage They hate that I took my inheritance and moved to Brooklyn—which anyone knows is unacceptable, populated, as it is, by Northerners

I look around this room in the house that was once our faenerations froI canthe baseboards The ten-foot-tall artificial Christlass Christopher Radko orna to insist that everything here is just dandy, thank you very much, but I know better

This is a family that is rotten at its core, no matter what the decor tells you

I see things as they are, right through the fakery and pretense I can still rerand, before Wendy Spinnaker decided to throw thousands of dollars into some kind of fake restoration of its fa?ade

But that sums up this family’s philosophy of life perfectly: plaster over the real stuff, and slap a veneer on the top Nobody will know

But I know

A slightly drunk old gentle ed and some acquisitions he’s acquired, and also that he thinks my niece is the only person who can make Welsh rarebit taste like a potload of old socks I’ree with him when I realize with a start that he didn’t really say that last bit It’s too loud and hot in this rooh, he toddles off

I have my talents

Then, miracle of miracles, just as we’re all about to succu, the front door opens with a whoosh, and the party suddenly takes on energy, like soed it back in and we’re allowed to come back to life

The young couple is here!

Wendy hurries over to the entryway and claps her hands and says, “Everyone! Everyone! Of course y’all all know , brilliant Noah—and now this is his lovely fiancée, Marnie MacGraw, soon to be our exquisite daughter-in-law! Welcome to you, dahlin’!”

The little quartet in the corner of the living room strikes up “Here Co hands with the couple, blocking my view I can hear Noah, heir to the faht and the traffic, while his fiancée is being h she’s a cos to everybody If I crane ht, I can see that she’s truly lovely—tall and thin, red-cheeked and golden, and wearing a blue beret tipped askeith a jauntiness you don’t normally see at Wendy’s parties

And then I notice so about the way she peeks out fros And—pow!—fro passes in a flash from her to me

I had been about to get up from my place on the love seat, but now I fall back into it, close ers

I know her Oh my God, I actually feel like I know her

It takes roup Maybe I’m mistaken after all How could it be? But no It’s true Marnie MacGraw is just like the old glorious entility, and I see her both young and old, and feellike it used to

Come over here, sweetheart, I beam toward her

So this—this—is why I’ive some closure to years of family strife It wasn’t to drink these absurd cocktails or even to revisit my roots

I was meant to meet Marnie MacGraw

I put ainst the ball of tu there since last winter, the hard, solid ht before summer comes

Come over here, Marnie MacGraw I have so much I need to tell you

Not yet Not yet She does not come

Ah yes Of course There are duties to be perfor shown off to polite Southern society, when you’re the heir apparent’s intended And under the strain of it all, Marnie MacGraw has turned fluttery, nervous—and then she htfully horrendous it alone would have stood her in good stead with me for a lifetime, even if I didn’t already know her She declines to take a portion of Wendy’s Welsh rarebit At first she simply shakes her head politely when it is thrust in her direction She tries to clairy, but that’s clearly untrue, as Wendy points out with her laser-like eyes flashing, because Marnie’s been traveling with Noah for hours, and Wendy happens to know that they missed both breakfast and lunch and have tried to survive on airline peanuts

“Why, honey, you le extra calorie on those bones, bless your heart!”

I close my eyes She’s been here only a few minutes and has already earned herself a deadly “bless your heart” Marnie, wobbly now, reaches out and takes a scone and a single red grape, but this is not the right thing either

“No, no, e in the voice Somehow Noah has failed to explain to his true love that fauests take some of the rarebit, and then theyin their rapture over its wonderfulness, always so much more wonderful than last year

And then Marnie says the thing that seals her fate She stammers out the words, “I-I a rabbits”